Professional athletes are rich and spoiled. If there’s one thing they like more than making a ton of money, it’s flaunting that money. That can include buying a new stretch Hummer limo made entirely of 24-karat gold, residing in a house that rivals Charles Foster Kane’s Xanadu, or just going around in strip clubs throwing $100 bills at people. Oftentimes it also includes gambling.

The Gilbert Arenas story has once again linked gambling with professional athletes. Many teams, in response, have banned their players from gambling. Instead, it seems like they shouldn’t hire athletes that they can’t trust to play a friendly game and not end up pointing guns at each other (if that even happened). The reports of what happened keep changing, with the most recent version I heard being that it was all a misunderstanding and that they were joking around about shooting each other over a gambling debt. Maybe teams shouldn’t hire athletes who don’t know that you shouldn’t joke about gun violence while wielding loaded guns. Just thinking out loud here…

There are people out there that are going to blame the situation, which resulted in the indefinite suspension of the superstar guard, on gambling. They will say that if you don’t let the players gamble, these things won’t happen. These are the same people who think whenever someone is shot and killed it is the fault of the gun instead of the shooter. Both arguments have the same problem (well, then anti-gun argument has a lot of problems): It ignores individual responsibility.

We at Gambling Review have always said that people need to gamble responsibly. That means to never bet money you can’t afford to lose, never bet money that would lead to you owing someone, always pay off your bets (to avoid gambling debt), and treat it like a fun game. If you’re not having fun, to the point where you feel like bringing guns into the mix, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Banning athletes from gambling won’t keep them out of trouble, unless you also ban them from drinking, driving, going to strip clubs, going to dance clubs, bachelor parties, and whatever else they like to do for fun.

The point is this: Professional athletes need to be responsible, just like everybody else. Some say they are wrong to throw their money away by gambling it rather than donating it to a charity. Maybe. If so, though, isn’t spending money on anything nonessential irresponsible? Is it irresponsible to buy a big high-definition TV? You don’t need TV at all and even if you want to watch television, there are cheaper sets out there. What about a new car? There are plenty of clunkers out there that you could buy for less (except those destroyed by the government). Why waste money on a house when there are plenty of cheap trailers out there? Why go to Disney World when you can have fun skipping stones across a pond?

Yes, I know that there is a line out there where wasting money is wrong. Why should Michael Jordan bet $1 million on a golf hole while impoverished children in the Chicago slums can’t afford to wear his Nike sneakers? Be that as it may, a person has a right to use their money as they choose. If you want to satisfy both urges, the urge to gamble and the urge to help people, there are lots of charity gambling tournaments out there. I think hitting those is a great idea for millionaire athletes with plenty of money to spend.